<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The elephant??? Drupal is huge and growing every day. It's struggling to appropriately welcome people in and help them find a place and a leadership position within the community. The Drupal Association, unfortunately under the jurisdiction of Belgium NPO governance rules</blockquote>
<div><br>True. And the reason is simple: Dries is from Belgium and lives in Belgium. He founded the project and the is a founding member of the association. <br></div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
is not as transparent as it should be: it's structure is just plane confusing to many. </blockquote><div><br>The terms are confusing. The structure is not so.<br><br>There is simply a general assembly (GA) composed of members (called "permanent members", PM, I will come to that later. New members are elected every year. (I was elected to in the first round of elections in Jan 2008). The GA elects the board of directors (BoD) who are the ones that have voting power on decision, known as Board Members (BM). There are more details and they are all in the statutes which are on the association web site in PDF format in Dutch and English.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The board and the permanent members do not have enough new blood, in my opinion. </blockquote>
<div><br>New blood was infused in Jan 2008 and Jan 2009.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">The idea of "permanent" members is just plain bad in my opinion. </blockquote>
<div><br>This has been brought up several times within the association, and there is talk on changing that. As a matter of fact many aspects of the statutes are being proposed for revision. They are not cast in stone and can be changed. <br>
<br>We like to hear your feedback, as well as others on all aspects of the association.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The custom more often found in North America of having board members rotate would be much healthier for the organization, in my opinion. </blockquote><div><br>The board members have two year terms. ALL BOARD POSITIONS WERE UP FOR ELECTION THIS YEAR, including Dries himself. The only exception was the position of secretary (Angie Byron). <br>
<br>Anyone could have run for president. No one did, and Dries was voted (I like to joke and say I was not sure, but voted for him :-) ).<br> <br>Just for fun, and because I wanted to blog on it for a long time, but never got around to it: Here is a breakup of the GA and BoD by geography:<br>
<br>The bulk of members of the GA and the BoD is North American. Heavy towards USians and Canadians. <br><br><a href="http://association.drupal.org/about/staff">http://association.drupal.org/about/staff</a><br><br>For the BoD, Gerhard and Dries are in Europe, everyone else is from USA except for Angie is in Canada (she is American too), and Jacob is in China (also an American).<br>
<br>For the GA, Nedjo, Boris, and me are in Canada, and Kristof and Bert are in Europe. The rest are all In the USA. Robert Douglass lives in Germany and is also American.<br><br>So you can see that the USA is heavy in there, followed by Canada, then some Europe sprinkled in.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Though Dries has set a wonderful example of welcoming input, criticism, new ideas... I don't think the members of the General Assembly, with many exceptions, have done as well. And I'm not sure whether Dries recognizes this problem.<br>
</blockquote><div><br>We like to hear from you, and others, whether privately via the contact form at <a href="http://association.drupal.org">association.drupal.org</a> or other channels.<br><br>We realize that we should have better communication. But believe me, this is not due to secrecy, it is due to other factors as we grow as an organization and as we learn more.<br>
<br>There are plans in the works on better communication.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>How is all this relevant to the current discussion? </blockquote>
<div><br>The Drupal Association's goals are many, and include the following:<br><br>- Promoting Drupal in general.<br>- Drupal Events (DrupalCon mainly, others in the work).<br>- Running the infrastructure for *.<a href="http://drupal.org">drupal.org</a>.<br>
<br>What is NOT in the asscoiation's mandate is <br><br>- Dictating what code goes into Drupal's core or contrib<br>- Dictate what is supported or not supported.<br><br>These are all community driven, and the association stays clear out of these.<br>
<br>Look at what Dries himself presented a couple of days ago on building communities<br><br><a href="http://buytaert.net/files/building-foss-communities-osbc-2009.pdf">http://buytaert.net/files/building-foss-communities-osbc-2009.pdf</a><br>
<br>Notable by its absence is the association.<br><br>Please ask any other questions that you (or others) may have, and me as well as others from the DA will try to answer them the best as we can.<br></div></div>-- <br>Khalid M. Baheyeldin<br>
<a href="http://2bits.com">2bits.com</a>, Inc.<br><a href="http://2bits.com">http://2bits.com</a><br>Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.<br>Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. -- Edsger W.Dijkstra<br>
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci<br>